Ice Planet
by Spirit Speaker
Summary: Five years on the ice planet is a long time to be alone, but what happens when that alone time is broken up by scientists coming to study? What happens when one is a little more troublesome than she should be? Rated for language. Hiatus: Being rewritten to do this story justice.
1. Chapter 1

She couldn't stand just imagining it or reading about it… the ice planet. Its glaciers and rock formations were legendary for their shapes and formations. After all the ice never melts, so freeze-thaw is basically non-existent. Thousands upon thousands of layers of ice constantly piling on top of each other… the verse's only known 'growing' planet. Not to mention the catacomb fields formed in ancient weathering.

Just yesterday she got the notice of her assignment to join the research team on their new expedition. Unfortunately, the notice also came late, arriving only after the entire team landed on the planet. Yet, blessing in disguise, a freighting ship had a passenger space available and the team's shuttle could meet it as it passed.

Boarding the ship was amusing, mainly because of the men's amusement as she struggled loading her gear into the small locker near her space. The docking pilot surprised her by lending her a helping hand (and truly one hand) then asking her "What's a pretty little thing like you headin' to the ice planet for?" Despite (or because of) his overly flashy smile, she only grinned.

Turning away from him, she climbed into her tank and prepared for take-off.

The settlers had come to close to his previous camp so he'd been forced to move. The fact there were settlers period baffled him, and he didn't like being baffled.

He followed the group a few days later, didn't like what he found.

Scientists. Might as well be morons for all the good they do. Tried telling the world it was going to hell in a handbag, yet they themselves are oblivious to the part they play in it's destruction.

So when they set up camp on a smooth ice field three miles away from the catacombs, it was only natural he shifted his camp to the other side. No way could they hike by without him seeing. No way could they find him without him finding them first.

Shuttle change and one bumpy landing latter, Stephanie was being tossed in the air.

"Fi!" Robert hollered above the biting wind. His hands gripped her tightly around the waist, even as he set her back down. He yelled over the wind, "You've got to come inside, before you freeze, and we'll show you the pictures of the exploration site. You're gonna love it!"

Before she could hit him for the freezing comment, or even reply really, he was hauling her threw the snow and leaving Joey to carry her gear.

"We've already mapped out the area within a ten-mile radius, but we haven't even touched the catacombs yet." He reached the ice plains where the tents were set up. In the center, the research building was still in the process of being set up. Due to the environment, they had no way to set up a permanent site, but they could set up a semi-permanent one with a military dome. As soon as the rest of the supplies showed up.

Cheap ass sponsors, Stephanie thought, only a percentage more on top of the bottom line and the research would be fully underway and the site set up. Robert led her past the half set up building to a row of green reinforced tents. Second row in, second tent in. He stopped, ripped open the flap to expose three scientists arguing over a map.

"No, the first spot is the crevice on the west edge!"

"What about the multitude of crevasses beyond the northern ridge? You gonna forget about them?"

Well, maybe more like squabbling toddlers than scientists. Stephanie laughed, loud boisterous gasps of air that distracted the hounds from their prize kill. She was over sixty three thousand light years from her birth planet, yet here was home. Amongst the squabbling toddlers.

"Fi!" The cries came as Kimi, Reginald, and Alicia realized she was standing there. Once again she was hauled up off her feet and the three attacked her with hugs and squeals.

"How was your trip?" Alicia asked, almond shaped eyes creasing at the corners even more as her grinned broadened knowingly in response to Stephanie shrugged. "That's what I thought. Docking pilot try to hit on you?"

Stephanie nodded.

Reginald shook his head, "Poor bastard, imagine if he actually got you?"

Both Kimi and Stephanie gasped, as Robert laughed. When the glares turned to him, he shrugged. "It was funny."

Stephanie rolled her eyes then pointed at the map.

Kimi sighed, "That's the mess of a project you volunteered for, hun. It's a dozy."


	2. Chapter 2

"Alright, now that you're here," Reginald began, "Where do you think we should begin?"

Stephanie looked over the map carefully. Almost everything was marked, except for a mountain by the eastern edge of the camp. The catacombs were just beyond it. Those were what really tweaked her interest. Stephanie pointed and looked up.

Kimi and Alicia were smirking and Robert was digging around in his pocket. Stephanie raised an eyebrow.

Kimi explained, "We knew you'd want to check out the catacombs. Robert was betting on the ice caves and crevasses beyond the northern ridge."

Laughing Alicia commented, "We told him those had already been marked for study, and therefore, you wouldn't be interested."

Looking between the two, Stephanie had to ask, _'Am I really that predictable?'_

They girls looked at each other, then back at Fi. They shrugged.

She rolled her eyes, and turned back to the map laid out on the table. The ice caves would be interesting, only because of their age. The caves were supposedly like hollowed out tunnels, predicted to be a few thousand years old. The catacombs were similar in age, but not structure. Plus, no one had yet marked them down for study.

A hand tapped the paper in front of her and she looked up to Reginald smiling sympathetically. He sighed, "You're not going to like this, but since this is a low interest, high risk project that only about fifty scientists have signed up for, we have to follow orders from management." At her confused look, he continued, "The catacombs aren't yet marked for study because management isn't allowing us over there," He held up at hand as she began to gesture and move her hands wildly, "Yet. They could decide to grant us access to that area today, they could next week, or they could next year-"

"If we're here that long," Kimi interrupted.

Giving her a look, he continued, "The point being, we don't know when we'll be given access. For now," he pointed to the map, "all the areas in blue are where we are allowed to go."

She sighed and looked back down at the map. Then, with an even larger sigh, she pointed at the area labeled 'ice caves'.

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The new arrival was surprising. No one new had shown up in a couple of weeks, and the activity had been centered on getting the tents and main building set up.

Riddick supposed soon the activity would be spread out, but he couldn't be sure. So he watched as the new arrival was tossed in the air, and then pulled by an arm to the camp. He watched as they disappeared into a tent. _Second row, second in._ He even chuckled at the guy they'd left behind to haul the new girl's excessive gear in. Well, chuckled until he saw several large cases of an unmistakable nature hauled out, along with a quiet passing of items in a handshake with the docking pilot. So the new girl was a ruse. Assuming the new girl was a girl, 'cause the snow gear hides all the curves a woman's supposed to have. Either way, being tossed in the air isn't something most men would put up with. But a delicate female? Definitely more likely.

His cave was high up on the mountain, hidden by boulders and ice, yet still open to the ledge from where he could see the entire set up.

Three days later, the true studies were under way, just as Riddick had predicted. He watched as the people grouped around a central few and then broke off into smaller groups. None of the groups came near to where he was hiding, nor went in the direction of the catacombs. He watched as the newbie in her bright blue gear joined a relatively small group head toward the north. Wonder what they were looking for that way?

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"Move your ass Kimi!!" Joey snapped as the short brunette stopped, yet again. Ignoring him, she bent down anyways and drilled a small hole into the ice and removed a thin rod of ice. She placed the sample in a bag, labeled it, and placed that bag into an even larger bag with the rest of the samples she had collected along the way before putting it in the peach colored bag that matched the rest of her gear.

Alicia watched the two of them with one thin brow raised, "I know you want enough samples to study, but I think the one every three feet in beyond adequate." She looked at the irate young man in green standing behind the brunette, "Besides," she continued, "Joey is looking a little too thoughtfully at his ice pick, right now."

A short blast from a whistle called the three's attention to the others already far ahead of them. A tiny blue figure was waving her arms at them, clearly impatient. An orange figure joined her.

"Come on y'all!" Robert hollered.

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The three caught up with the others fairly quickly, after the peach colored one stopped again. The newbie was odd, always blowing a whistle to get the others' attention, and usually gesturing wildly as she talked. He couldn't hear what she was saying, couldn't hear any of them from his height, but could tell she was energetic, more so than the others.

Not only did she gesture wildly, but she was impatient. The newbie constantly tugged on her companions' sleeves to speed them up, frequently walked several yards ahead of the others.

"Careful Blue," he whispered, his voice low and thoughts calculating, "don't wanna get too far ahead of your friends."

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Stephanie paused at the entrance to the first ice cave. Oh my…, she thought, I am in the Ice Queen's castle.

She shook herself as the hair on her neck rose, a reaction to the strange and almost deadly beauty the cave offered. Constant snow storms had piled snow across the entrance, but she could still see the wonders inside.

Somehow, despite the consistently freezing temperatures of this planet, stalactites and stalagmites had formed. God only knows how old they are, Fi thought in shock. When she took a step forward, movement to her left caught her eye. She started, thinking the others were closer than she thought, but then saw it was only her reflection. She took another step forward and gaped at the thin ice sheet just inside the entrance of the cave. Stephanie kept walking forward, barely looking where she was walking, until she cast a shadow against the ice sheet. She gasped.

Even her small shadow revealed the secrets of the ice sheet. It was a wall between her cavern and what could only be another ice cave, maybe even a whole separate cavern. One that was completely smooth, and entirely blocked from the elements. One that had several tunnels that led in various directions.

"Oh my," came a quiet voice behind her, and Reginald's yellow reflection appeared behind her right shoulder. He took a step closer, and the shadow grew to reveal more of the inside.

"What could have formed such a thing as this?" Alicia asked as the others appeared behind Stephanie.


	3. Chapter 3

Tourist traps have their name for a reason. They gained their name early on in glacial exploration although the name was mainly used commercially as a play on words. The traps themselves were holes in the ice that ranged from any size and generally were any depth. Those characteristics were determined by the materials in the ice. If there were seeds, feces, or any foreign other foreign matter a tourist trap was more likely. The foreign matter would heat up in the sunlight and melt the surrounding ice, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. Obviously, due to the melting of the ice, the traps were generally filled with water.

The ice planet had some pockets in the ice field and glaciers that appeared to be tourist traps, but like all the other characteristics of the planet, they were incredibly old and, well, frozen.

It was for this reason that Stephanie and the others weren't entirely paying attention in the ice cave that they came upon.

"This is amazing!" Joey said, in awe of the perfectly formed cave. Once the team had cleared most of the snow away, they saw that there were several branching tunnels in this cave also, not just in the adjacent cavern.

Fi nodded vigorously in agreement, as Kimi called over from her place at the entrance.

"Hey Reggie! Come check this out."

"Hey Kimi, come check this out," Reggie responded by gesturing to the ice tower in the center of the room. It looked exactly like what happens when a stalactite and a stalagmite join together, only out of ice.

Fi shook her head, this cave was amazing! The register had mention the caves hadn't been studied much, but she thought it would have at least mentioned oddities of this cave. Turning, she spotted Robert sitting off to the side, map and register spread out in front of him. Stephanie walked over to him, and peaked over his shoulder.

He barely glanced back before he began to speak, "I wanted to find this cave so I could mark it on the map, but I haven't found it." He sighed and drug his hand through his hair.

Stephanie tapped his shoulder to get his attention, '_What's the problem?'_

He chuckled, "All the caves were given a cursory overview. Each one was listed with a few characteristics, and given coordinate points on the map." He handed her his GPS, "Clearly the coordinates don't match up to any of the caves on the register, or on the map."

'_Did management miss one?'_

He shrugged, "Dunno. Probably."

Smiling she looked around the icy room they were in, '_Looks like we were given a' _she paused for a moment then spelled out the next word, _'f-r-e-e-b-i-e'_

Robert started laughing and then patted her on the shoulder, "I guess so, Fi, I guess so."

Stephanie just shook her head, and decided to take a closer look at the tunnels branching off from the main cave. Each was about six feet in diameter and had completely smooth walls, unlike the main cavern. She looked in each one, with her flashlight in hand, and took a few steps into the tunnel closest to her friends. She didn't even bother glancing back, or telling the others where she was going, and kept walking. She rounded a corner, and saw a fork in the tunnel. Upon closer inspection, the left one connected up with another tunnel, while the right continued on to another turn. All too fascinated, she continued the right. When she got to the curve, she couldn't contain her gasp.

Her flashlights beam of light faded as ice around her glowed blue, due to a thin covering of ice at the top of the tunnel, exposing it to the storm above. Fi walked forward, and stood directly underneath the thin covering, not realizing what she stood on.

She barely heard the ice crack, only realizing her mistake as the ice beneath her gave away to the largest tourist trap she'd even seen…. Or fallen in. As she fell, she uselessly tried to scream, only forcing needed air from her lungs as her head disappeared under the water. In a brief second Stephanie realized, she was going to die.

Pressure was suddenly applied around her wrist as she was hauled out of the freezing water and disappeared just as quickly as it arrived. Without pausing, Fi began coughing up the water that had gotten into her nose and mouth, then fumbled for her whistle. She blew heard, but only a quiet wheezing could be heard.

Frustrated she tapped the thing hard on the ice to get water out of it. Trying again, she was much more satisfied with piercing squeal that ensued. She blew two more long blasts with the whistle. Movement to her right caught her attention, but only briefly as the others came running.

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He knew following them was a foolish idea, but he was curious. He took every precaution to prevent getting caught, even found a second entrance to the cave and followed the tunnel, only to see the newbie leaving the others on her own adventure. Shaking his head at her foolishness, he watched as she continued walking past the entrance to his tunnel.

He was forced to keep ahead f her as she picked his tunnel to explore, and eventually hid in the second branching of the tunnel. From there he watched as she became fascinated with the view into the outside world and stepped directly underneath it. He heard the crack and reacted on instinct from then on.

Grabbing her wrist as her arms flailed, he was surprised by how heavy she was. Then he noticed that she tried to kick as he lifted her up, but her boots were too heavy due to the spikes for walking on ice. Riddick dropped her on the solid ice and waited for her to scream.

Instead, she fumbled for that damn whistle. He left before she got the second blast off.


	4. Chapter 4

"Fi, Fi," a voice broke through her sleep and finally dragged her awake, "Fi, come on open your eyes."

A new voice piped up, "If you don't, then I call dibs on your gear." Fi heard a muffled thump, "Ow."

Groggily, she opened her eyes and looked up the see Reggie rubbing his stomach grumpily as he glared at Kimi reproachfully.

The person next to Stephanie sighed in relief before gripping her head in a hug. "Oh Fi, you moron! You had us so worried," When Alicia released her head, Stephanie shook it, but quickly stopped. It felt like she'd been clobbered with a hammer the size of her fist.

As Fi realized she wasn't in her tent, she took a look around. She was in one of sturdier medical tents that had been put up by the semi-complete dome. For necessary reasons, they had been the first tents to be put up, and were much more stable in the planet's strange environment. The medical tents were also larger than the others, due to the cots taking up extra room, and Fi could see everyone from her team had squeezed inside her tent.

She lifted herself up into a sitting position on the cot, and realized Alicia was talking. Fi looked at her and gestured for her to repeat.

Rolling her eyes, Alicia asked, "How are you feeling?"

Fi wrinkled her nose and blew a raspberry.

"That good huh?"

"Well I'm not surprised." Kimi said, "You were moderately hypothermic by the time we got you back to base." She shook her head, "What were you thinking, going off on your own like that? You're lucky to be alive you know!"

Alicia and Joey nodded in agreement.

Stephanie hung her head, they were right. Stephanie knew the rules and had blatantly ignored them in her fascination with the ice cave. She feebly lifted her hands '_Good thing I had my whistle.'_

Robert snorted, "More than you know. If you hadn't had that thing we wouldn't have known you were in trouble," He paused, "Hell, we wouldn't have even known which tunnel to look in when we realized you were missing." No one noticed Fi's confused look.

"Well, I can say I won't ever be racing you in a swimming contest." Joey said.

Fi frowned.

"Girl, you were able to kick your feet with enough force to get yourself out of that hole, even while wearing your 'cramp-ons'." Joey stated, shaking his head in amazement, "Fi, you must be one hell of a swimmer."

Fi stared at him open mouthed, then looked around the room. All of them had similar looks on their faces.

'_I don't understand,'_ she began, _'Didn't one of you pull me out?'_

"Sweetie, when we found you, you were already out of the water." Alicia said. Fi noticed her glance at Robert before she continued, "You pulled yourself out of that hole."

Shaking her head, Fi started gesturing wildly. Alicia grabbed her hands, "It's okay. It's okay," She pushed her hands down to her lap, "The medics said something like this might happen."

Fi gave her a bewildered look.

"What she means is," Robert began, "The severe temperatures of the water and the air affected your brain." He shrugged, "It's a classic sign of hypothermia, even mild hypothermia causes muddled thinking."

Sighing, Fi shrugged also. How else could she have gotten out the trap without getting out herself? None of her team had been near her, right? Only one thing didn't add up though.

Robert cleared out his throat, interrupting her train of thought, and looked down at his feet. "Fi, we tried to keep what happened kinda quiet, but management caught wind." Fi shut her eyes not wanting to hear what came next, "They've put you on probation for a coupla weeks, just to make sure you'll be fine to go back in the field."

She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes. More than likely the other teams would have caught wind of the ice cave's beauties and would be clamoring to be a part of the studies and excavations. The cave would be a mad house.

"Hey," Joey started, but Fi didn't look at him, "Hey look at me. You'll be out there soon enough. Hell, you found the damn cave, we'll probably name it after you." He snorted, "If you'd actually died that'd be a sure thing." He yelped as a pillow flew through the air and hit him.

Fi giggled, small, tiny hicks of air. Alicia grinned, and Reggie and Kimi high fived. Robert just shook his head.

Fi waved to get Kimi's attention, '_Nice shot.'_

Kimi just smiled impishly.

And so, as soon as the medics had checked Stephanie over and gave her a clean bill of health, she was back in action… doing desk work.

She moped the first day when Robert showed her where she'd be working and then handed her the bag of samples that Kimi had collected. The team had decided to give her the samples they had collected from the cave, including one of the water she fell in since it technically shouldn't exist.

Yet still being included in the project wasn't enough to rid her of her disappointment at being kept from exploring the site, and the others noticed. It was Robert who pulled her aside.

"Look, you'll just have to stay away from the caves for a little while. There is plenty of good work to be done around here," He'd said, using his arms to emphasize 'plenty'. "You'll be back in action before you know it."

And so the team left Fi to examine, mainly Kimi's, precious samples while they got to do all the fun field work.

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Watching the camp from a distance is one thing. Venturing into it, entirely another. Nevertheless, it had to be done to find out just what exactly was in those cases that had come with the newbie.

The military dome had finally been completed in the last couple days, and fewer teams had been going out. Blue's team was one of the several active teams, although she hadn't gone out with them in a couple days. Riddick was mildly curious about what happened to her, more curious if it had anything to do with those cases. And that curiosity, paired with an infallible survival instinct caused him to go about planning on how to get inside that dome.

* * *

I apologize for the long wait, and the uneventful chapter. The next one will be out ASAP, lol. thanks to all those who have reviewed, don't worry I'm not forsaking this story!!

SS


	5. Chapter 5

It was easier than he thought. Easier than he would have liked really. The side door was unguarded, and as far as he could tell, had no silent alarm. The corridor was empty too, despite all teams being currently on-site. Could have something to do with the time.

He saw a light further down the corridor, no flickering to indicate movement, but that didn't mean anything. He moved closer, only hugging the wall when he reached to door jam.

A girl huffed while sitting at a microscope. Face hidden by the eye piece, all that was visible was the shroud of shoulder length curls surrounding her face, much like a child in the old black and whites found special in antique shops.

In the corner, a jacket was draped over a chair. A blue, heavy jacket.

He smirked. It was good to know what she looked like without that bulky jacket, but that information would be good for later. Instead he walked past the doorway and continued on, the girl never looking up from her microscope.

This sucks, Fi thought. The samples brought back were rather un-interesting, and she'd been working for only God knows how long and had truly found nothing. She was hesitant to test the water where fell though. There was nothing to fear from a bit of water, really, but something deep in her gut quivered at the thought of testing it, of looking at samples underneath the microscope, of discovering what made up the highly dilute solution.

But she could procrastinate no longer, for she finished testing and examining the last sample from within the cave.

Leaning back she pushed her chair away from the microscope she'd been using (unnecessarily really) and grabbed for the pack of labels only to find there wasn't any left. Grumbling, she realized she'd have to hunt for the storage closet before she could begin on the next set of samples. Just what I need, she thought, to get lost in this dang maze of a place.

In fact it only took her a few moments to find the closet, or what she thought was one. It was surprisingly cold, more like a freezer than anything. And the shelves were surprisingly barren, except for a single box of labels. She grabbed it before spotting the odd shapes behind the shelves, almost hidden by the poor lighting. They were crates, heavy duty and steel. They looked to be containers for some sort of special equipment, much like all the special equipment needed for this program. Shrugging, she made to turn back around, but never got the chance.

In fact it took her several moments to realize her feet no longer had contact with the ground. She didn't even hear what was being asking her, such was her shock at seeing the person she'd caught a glimpse of in the tunnel. The one who must have hauled her out of the water.

Shaking her he asked, "What's in those crates?"

She realized he must have been shouting at her for some time because her ears were ringing. He shook her again, and she raised her hands to respond.

He only squeezed her tighter and pressed her hard against the shelves behind her.

"Answer me," He all but growled.

Fi wanted to shout 'I'm trying,' but the only sound she could make was the movement of air.

Again, he shook her. He didn't yell though. Instead, he froze, turned his head.

Scientists. He nearly snorted as he moved down a hallway, searching for an alternate way out the dome. The passageways have no markings, no signs, or even lines on the floors to indicate, well anything really.

If that damned scientist hadn't walked in…

If there hadn't been more than one of them…

He'd dropped Blue as soon as the door started opening in order to kick it closed on the person standing behind it. The gentleman was knocked down, and Riddick used the distraction to get out of that damned closet.

It was only by chance that he'd walked in there, thinking he'd found the way out, and only chance that he saw those crates hidden not so carefully. The same crates he'd watched being unloaded.

He rounded another hallway and heard voices coming down from a branching corridor. He ducked back, but could still feel the cold from the door these scientists were coming through. Waiting for when they finally were out of earshot, he swiftly moved down the hall and left through the still closing door. This time he went outside.

"Fi, you alright?" Robert asked as he strode into her office. "Who was that guy we just heard about? Was that Oswald? Man needs to shave. Badly."

Fi gapped at the man, then sat down hard. She only just made it back to her office after stumbling through the halls in a daze. '_Oswald?' _

"Yeah the freaky guy whose hair is a lame afro from like, a hundred years ago." Kimi supplied as she followed Robert before slumping down unto a stool across from the table. She took in Stephanie's pale face and sporadic breathing, "Oh crap he didn't try anything did he? I've heard he been strange around the ladies."

Fi stared at Kimi in shock and confusion, her jaw hanging loosely on its hinges.

"That bastard," Robert muttered, "What did he do?"

Mouth forming an 'o', Fi turned in her stool to stare at Robert instead.

Nodding his head, he straightened his back and stated, "I'm going to go talk to him" and he turned from the room, stride wide in his anger.

Too late, Stephanie realized what happened and she stood to run after him, only to be caught by Kimi. Fi raised her hands to protest, only to be prevented from communicating for the second time as Kimi grabbed her hands.

"Hun," she said, "I don't care what kind of misunderstanding you think it was, the man needs to know it won't happen again."

Again Fi tried to speak, despite knowing she was unable to, and again her attempts were ignored as Kimi looked to the door to the lab, biting her lip.

Kimi turned back to Fi, "I'm gonna go make sure no one gets hurt… too much." And off she went, leaving a flustered young woman behind waving her arms and signing wildly, as she finally had the freedom to do so. Shaking in frustration, she sat down to gather her thoughts.

And thumped her head on the table when she realized she forgot the labels.


	6. Chapter 6

Despite the forgotten labels, Fi was able to finish analyzing most of the samples. The next day of course, and most being the operative word. Despite the fit her team was having over the assumed issues she'd had with the man, Stephanie hadn't said a word about the incident. Honestly, Fi had no idea what to think of what happened, and was having a hard time understanding the incident herself.

So, instead of pondering the incident more, she decided to get to work. The result being five samples set aside for further analysis, or because they were simply conceptual anomalies. Two were melted ice samples, three were samples of the liquid water she had fallen into.

These samples puzzled her. By all accounts, the originally liquid samples shouldn't exist. The planet has never been warm enough and likely will never be warm enough for liquid water. And until the scientists, there was only one group of settlers who quickly abandoned the idea. Or were actually convicts looking to use this place as a hide out, if one believes the rumors. Fi couldn't imagine wanting to hide out here. Or even how one would survive here. No food, not heat, no water to drink and sucking on ice would take what little body heat one might be able to salvage.

Currently, Stephanie was pacing. She couldn't get the water out of her head. Ice she expected, knew she would find. But water? There was no plausible explanation. Heck, even the ice caves shouldn't really exist. The whole point in studying them is to discover how they exist. And with ice stalagmites and stalactites no less. The current theory was that a stone (a meteorite of some sort) hit the top of the ice and melted through. The heat of the meteorite would, in theory, melt through and, while the planet was cold, the water melted wouldn't refreeze immediately. It would flow through to drip rapidly, and form the thin, spindly formations present in the cave. Now, the scientists only have to find proof. Preferably the meteors themselves.

But the water from the hole was relatively freshly made, only a couple of inches had frozen over, and the hole was relatively perfect. So could it have been a meteor? A big one? If so, then why was there still a ceiling to the tunnel? It was thin, yes, but present all the same.

In a sudden decision, Fi pull out a pad of paper from a nearby drawer. She stared at the samples, then wrote _Meteor?_ _Scan hole with imaging device. _Then, underneath that, _Check surrounding area. Could be more tourist traps. _She jotted down a few more notes, then tore the sheet off and headed out the door.

Predictably, her team was out (again, she was sooo jealous) and Fi had to head to the Contact Center to have them send out a radio wave to her team. The man working the team radio desk grudgingly sent out the message, and Robert sent a confirmation back. She took a closer look at the man working the radio. He had long hair, longer than most of the men on the base and some of the women too, a shade of pale blonde. His structure was long and thin, clearly the musculature of a man on a desk job whose metabolism advanced far beyond his eating habits. Fi was reminded of a friend in grade school. Guy could hide behind a tree.

She shrugged off her curiosity and decided to head to her bunk or really her tent to wait on her team's return and whatever results get brought with them.

It was while she was sitting in her bunk that pieces clicked into place about the man sitting at the desk. She had caught at glimpse of his name plate at his (apparently permanent) desk. 'Oswald Jenson'

Oswald. The man that supposedly was the one who accosted her in the storeroom yesterday, though she hadn't submitted a report yet. Now it seems to have been a good thing, for the man at that desk was not the man who'd pinned her to the wall with minimal effort. First off, Oswald was blond. A shade that would show up bright in even the minimal lighting in the storeroom. Second, his arms were thin with elegant hands and spindly fingers. So not the hands of the man from the previous day.

So if it wasn't Oswald, who her teammates pointed to due to her descriptions of the mystery man, then who was it?

Curious, she got up and accessed the computer screen on the desk next to her bed. After a little searching and backdoor hunting, she found a list of employees. The list contained everyone employed at the base, from the head honcho to the janitors complete with photo ID. Starting with the top, Fi began to hunt for a familiar face.

Three hours later her team still had not returned, and her search on the computer had revealed no results. Sure she found familiar faces, but not _his_ face. Meaning he wasn't an employee on this base. On even affiliated with the base since she checked those listings as well. But, if it wasn't an employee, a fellow scientist or researcher, how did he get on the base? Or, for that matter, the planet itself?

Rubbing her face she sat back in her seat. So the man from the storeroom was the same man from the cave. So… was he following her? He'd wanted to know what was in the crates. She frowned. What was in the crates? She couldn't immediately recall which crates he was talking about, or even if there were crates. Her focus had been on labels, then on the man. She really needed to have a broader focus of her surroundings. Fi's singularly tracked mind was what landed her in the giant tourist trap in the first place.

Alright, she thought. If I'm going to get any answers, I better go and find those crates, Stephanie told herself.

Unknown, he hung back amongst the tents as she left hers. He hadn't anticipated her still hanging around on her own. After the incident he'd assumed she'd have a guard of some sort. It's not like she could defend herself. She'd put up a rather useless fight in the storeroom, flailing her arms like she had.

Still, he watched as she left her tent and headed back towards the main building. Apparently the housing buildings for the people were still being set up. Blue walked with quick, long strides up to the military dome, her head tucked down under her bulking coat to keep from the cold.

He watched as she unlocked the door with a key card, a new security system put in to place. Another storm was raging out, so Riddick had no shadow to cast as he snuck up behind the girl as she swung open the heavy door and let it swing shut behind her. Only it took several seconds longer than usual to slam shut as Riddick came in on her heels. The scientist must have been highly focused because she didn't even notice.

Instead she kept walking, around the corner and straight toward the storeroom from before. Gritting his teeth, Riddick nearly growled. Maybe this time he could get answers. But when she went to the storeroom, she had to swipe her key card again to gain access and this time she was careful to shut the door behind her.

Someone was following her. She was sure of it. Just as she was sure it was the man from before. All the hairs on the back of her neck had risen shortly after the door had taken too long to shut. Fi struggled to keep her pace slow, and not give away that she knew someone was following her. Instead she went straight for the first key card locked door, which happened to be the very storeroom she was headed for.

Well, she might as well look around while she's stuck there.


End file.
